10. A League of Their Own (1992)
In 2022, Amazon Prime released a comedy sports show about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, which played the field while men were off fighting in the war.
That show was based on Penny Marshall’s sports-comedyA League f Their Own, which featured its own set of characters and subplots before the Amazon Prime series evolved the concept.
Still, the foundation ofA League of Their Ownremains true, based on the real-life Rockford Peaches team. Tom Hanks and Geena Davis imbue the lighthearted comedy with that retro, feel-good vibe of a 90s family flick. This one also happens to star Madonna!
Related:The Best Baseball Movies of All Time
9. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (2005)
The first movie installment ofThe Chronicles of Narnia—based on the beloved fantasy novels by C. S. Lewis—is probably the only one worth watching. But it’s a great one! A real charmer that can easily stand alone as a complete, compelling narrative.
Andrew Adamson set the franchise up with a promising start, enchanting children and adults alike with its snow-dusted whimsy.
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobebegins in a blitzed 1940s London, where four siblings are evacuated to the countryside. There, a normal-looking wardrobe turns out to be a portal to Narnia, a mythical land of magical beasts and talking beavers.
Related:The Best Medieval Fantasy Movies, Ranked
8. The Good Shepherd (2006)
WW2 laid the groundwork for many things: computers, microwaves, nuclear weapons, the SAS, the United Nations, and the CIA.
That last one is the subject ofThe Good Shepherd, which features the heavily dramatized story of the birth of the CIA. The whole thing is spearheaded by William J. Donovan (played by Robert De Niro), an intelligence officer who headed the CIA precursor, OSS.
Matt Damon, however, is the real star ofThe Good Shepherd. He plays the fictional Edward Wilson, who’s based on two early CIA operatives: James Jesus Angleton and Richard Bissell.
And as in many movies involving spies, espionage, World Wars, the Cold War, or government officials, Edward must ultimately choose between his duty and his family.
Related:The Best Cold War Movies of All Time, Ranked
7. On the Road (2012)
InOn the Road, the “cowboy music twanged in the roadhouse” and “everything was about to arrive” for Sal Paradise.
Sal is a wannabe writer who spends the 1940s hitchhiking across the states, dancing and boozing his way to the promise of more.
For Sal, Los Angeles—or, at least, theideaof it—was his “one and only golden town.” On top of that, theideaof Dean Moriarty (the restless, carefree embodiment of the Beat generation) was also better than he turned out to be in real life.
Not only isOn the Roadbased on the novel by Jack Kerouac, Sal himself is based on Jack Kerouac, who lives an unsustainable life at breakneck speed. Walter Salles turned the literary classic into a frantic road movie, starring Kristen Stewart, Garrett Hedlund, and Sam Riley.
Related:The Best Road Movies of All Time, Ranked
6. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018)
We could all do with some wholesome, seaside British romance from time to time.The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Societyis just the ticket, whether you read it or watch it.
Based on the 2008 novel, this historical drama is reliably nostalgic and held up by an equally reliable cast led by Lily James.
Guernsey is the second-largest of the Channel Islands and was occupied by Germany during WW2. But this movie focuses little on Nazis and machine guns. Instead, it’s about a quaint little book club that meets every Friday night.
When a big-shot author hears about them, she decides to sail over to write an article—not something they’re particularly keen on.
Related:The Best British Movies Set on the Beach or Coast
5. The Notebook (2004)
Before he was trying to steal Margot Robbie’s heart inBarbie, Ryan Gosling was trying to win over a spoiled Rachel McAdams inThe Notebook. (Ironically, the two didn’t get along on set!)
Ryan Gosling’s Noah starts thing off by cracking jokes at a carnival in 1940, and then building her a dream house after the war.
The kissing-in-the-rain trope has never been done so well as in Nick Cassavetes’s adaptation of the 1996 romance novel, nor the archetype of the incessantly arguing but deeply in-love couple.
Related:The Best Movies About Crushes and First Loves
4. Lolita (1997)
Despite the fact that distribution was near-impossible in the US and Australia, most people still knowLolitaand what it’s about. Vladimir Nabokov’s perverted novel ranks among other controversial cult classics likeDiary of an Oxygen ThiefandThe Kindly One.
As forLolita, Adrian Lyne was the second director to adapt it to film in 1997 (after Stanley Kubrick’s attempt in 1962).
The story centers on a tweed-wearing English professor (played by Jeremy Irons) in the 1940s, who falls for a 14-year-old girl (played by Dominique Swain). So, he rents a room in her mother’s home and whisks the underage Lolita away.
For context, the professor is in his late thirties, hence the controversy and distribution troubles. Even so, critics praised young Dominique Swain’s performance, which was packed full of female rage against the creepy Jeremy Irons.
Related:The Best Female Rage Movies Where Women Absolutely Lose It
3. Kill Your Darlings (2013)
Stereotypically, artists don’t make the best soldiers. There have been exceptions, of course, and some of history’s greatest poets were war poets, such as Wilfred Owen.
But we can’t imagine someone like Allen Ginsberg—the real-life Beat poet who was staunchly countercultural and anti-war—dropping out of university to invade Normandy.
John Krokidas’s vintage biopicKill Your Darlingsrecalls the 1940s, a decade when seeds were sown for the post-war counterculture that was spearheaded by the likes of Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac.
But just because they weren’t in the trenches doesn’t mean nobody was killed…
Related:The Best Dark Academia Movies, Ranked
2. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
Most fantasy films are kid-friendly adventure tales that promote ideas of friendship, love, bravery, and triumph over evil. Not quite the case when it comes toPan’s Labyrinth.
Directed by Guillermo del Toro—who’s known for his love of dark fantasy—Pan’s Labyrinthis substantially darker than any film in theHarry Potter,Narnia, orPirates of the Caribbeanseries.
Del Toro’s mythical creatures verge on the horrifying, but creatures like the faun inPan’s Labyrinthare the ones guiding the young female protagonist Ofelia (played by Ivana Baquero) on her quest through a newly discovered magical realm in 1944 Francoist Spain.
Related:The Best Magical Realism Movies That Mix Fantasy and the Real World
1. The Godfather (1972)
Mario Puzo’s novelThe Godfatherwas onThe New York TimesBest Seller list for 67 weeks, but Paramount executives were still wary that a film adaptation wouldn’t guarantee a hit.
As such, they wanted to setThe Godfatherin modern-day Kansas City, which would’ve been a much safer bet with much lower costs. Thankfully, director Francis Ford Coppola refused.
Today,The Godfatheris often cited as one of the greatest movies in history, and who knows if that would’ve still been the case if Coppola hadn’t stuck to the story’s original setting!
This epic gangster movie about the Corleone crime family in late-1940s New York is also an exploration of WW2’s aftermath and a corporate America where the Mafia tried once more to be in charge the way they were during the Great Depression.
Read next:The Best Movies About Gangs and Gangsters, Ranked
